Saturday, September the 13th of 1969 broke particularly warm and bright over the blue suburban skies outside Toronto. As this was to be the day the drummer in my very first teenaged garage combo agreed to accompany me from Port Credit all the way into the Big City in order that I could buy my very first teenaged guitar. But! An electric one this time; the better to approximate the walls of sound on our bass player’s “Summertime Blues” record …Blue Cheer version, that is.

’Way back in the 1980 hey!day of my funzine The Pig Paper, a certain Kevin Michael Allin sent over a sweetly autographed, stuffed-with-promo-material copy of an album called Always Was, Is and Always Shall Be which had been newly issued on none other than David “The Pope Smokes Dope” Peel’s Orange Records imprint. It sounded then, and remains today, a most spirited indeed collection of incredibly powerful pop in that classic Stooges / New York Dolls mold, with lyrics – especially heard in a, shall we say, immediate post-Pistols frame of ear – not really all that “shocking” whatsoever.

Heads up folks, DBAWIS will be going on summer hiatus beginning next week until September 7. So after today (Wednesday) I won’t be landing in your inbox or appearing on my FB timeline again until September 11. Hmmmmm…..come to think of it, I may resurrect a few oldies but goodies on my timeline, just to keep you on your toes. So with that, let this post begin….

This week I am going to write about my Mum. One problem with writing about my Mum is that I have limited concrete evidence about her early life, for a number of reasons. Growing up in the 60’s, there were things that just weren’t discussed in front of the children. Also, for at least 2 1/2 years in the early 60’s, we had 10 people living in a 3 bedroom house, including an infant and a toddler. Opportunities for meaningful discussion were thus limited. When that situation had eased, I had become a typical self absorbed teenager, and shortly thereafter went on to try to carve out my own Life.

I am going to conjure up some more work memories this week. Bear with me.

I remember the date well, January 5th, 1976. I was standing in line at a Canada Manpower Centre with a completed registration form in hand. A staff member came up to me, checked it over, noticed that I had Grade 13 and asked if I’d be interested in employment with the Federal Public Service. I famously replied “Sure, I’ll do anything!”

Today is a “schlep day”. One of those days when you roll out of bed two hours later than you wanted after a fabulous night listening to some funky, smooth jazz courtesy of Eddie, Quincy and Tre-Michael Bullen along with guests saxophonist Rob Christian and bassist Etric Lyons (Kush).

Your feel hit the floor and you wonder if anyone got the number of that truck that just sideswiped you as you stumble into the shower and just stand there. One look in the mirror and those racoon eyes tell you the makeup didn’t come off last night before you fell asleep and the hair…..oh lord…..the hair….. Soaped and rinsed, schlep day means no bra, no makeup, one extra extra large t-shirt, feet up and coffee in hand…..I ain’t fancying up for nobody. Now it’s time to complete my weekly music musings.